Tim Cook's Leadership Style Profiled After Two Years as Apple CEO

macrumors bot

With his two-year anniversary of being named Apple CEO coming on Saturday, Tim Cook is the subject of a new profile by Reuters highlighting his leadership style and some of the challenges he continues to face following in the footsteps of Steve Jobs. The report notes that Cook has been overseeing Apple's transition into a "mature corporate behemoth" and that he has successfully managed the company's high-profile iPhone and iPad lines, but that he has yet to prove he can deliver a new breakthrough product category.

Quote

Some worry that Cook's changes to the culture have doused the fire - and perhaps the fear - that drove employees to try to achieve the impossible.

Click to expand...

The intensely private Cook has been profiled in the past, and his workaholic nature, thoughtful demeanor and "no-nonsense, methodical style" are well-known, but the new profile offers a few more tidbits about his personality and how Apple runs under his command.

Quote

People who know him well paint a portrait of a thoughtful, data-driven executive who knows how to listen and who can be charming and funny in small group settings. [...]

Still, he has a tough side. In meetings, Cook is so calm as to be nearly unreadable, sitting silently with hands clasped in front of himself. Any change in the constant rocking of his chair is one sign subordinates look for: when he simply listens, they're heartened if there is no change in the pace of his rocking.

"He could skewer you with a sentence," the person said. "He would say something along the lines of 'I don't think that's good enough' and that would be the end of it and you would just want to crawl into a hole and die."

The report notes that Cook is generally very decisive, as evidenced by the issues Apple experienced with its new Maps app in iOS 6. According to sources, Cook responded quickly to that controversy with an open letter to customers and by bypassing then-iOS chief Scott Forstall to put software and services head Eddy Cue in charge of fixing the problems.

There has, however, been some grumbling by employees about a shift in the Apple culture under Cook, with Reuters quoting a morale survey distributed to members of the hardware engineering group earlier this year by senior executive Dan Riccio.

Overall, the verdict on Cook's tenure so far is portrayed in the profile as still in flux, with his challenging role seeing him making some positive changes for the company but still dealing with issues related to employee happiness and retention. And amid slowing revenue growth as the iPhone and iPad mature, customers and investors are eagerly anticipating the introduction of Apple's next major product line, whether it be smart watches, televisions, or something else.

macrumors 65816

Although people question his style of leadership, I generally have more respect for the person who stays quiet and may use the "one-liners" if he has to; as opposed to people who shout and display aggression.

It must suck being him, in the sense that all of the forum trolls/idiots/analysts are saying that he can't innovate and that he must rush out a new product after 2 years of being CEO.

Anyways, we'll see how things unwind over time. But I have confidence in this guy.

macrumors member

People need to stop comparing Cook to Jobs. He is not Jobs. Cook has led and will lead this company without issue. Plus with good people in his "administration", especially Ive, Apple will remain strong. People can bash Apple all they want as not meeting expectations, but those same people have bashed everything Apple has done and it seems everyone has copied them. The extent of copying varies, but essentially, all smartphone makes have copied the all touchscreen design pioneered by Apple. There is no debating that.

macrumors 65816

I personally think Cook is doing a good job. Imagine all the pressure and baggage (good and bad) that Jobs left for his replacement-I'm pretty impressed with all Cook has done since then. Sure, there have been missteps, but on the whole Cook keeps shining through.

macrumors 68040

It's funny/sad how people are expecting Cook to deliver revolutionary new products. How did Steve Jobs do after his return to Apple in 1997? Well, there was the iPod in 2001, iPhone is 2007 and iPad (although it was said to be "just a big iPhone) in 2010. That's three (or two if you exclude the iPad) revolutionary products in 13 years.

iMac? It was basically a refined continuation of the Macintosh. iBook, Powerbook? Laptops. Incredibly refined laptops, but still just laptops.

Apple has never been about brand-new revolutionary products, although they do release those on occasion. They are about constant refinement and iteration. How people keep on missing that all this time is beyond me.

macrumors 65816

but that he has yet to prove he can deliver a new breakthrough product category.

Click to expand...

Something that happens every 3-6 years based on history. Why are people getting impatient after 2 years?
Do "analysts" really expect Apple to completely reinvent an industry on a yearly basis? We're running out of industries to overturn! We'll have TV, wearables, and then.... um..... kitchenware?

Look at this from another Angle - if we still had Steve, we'd still have Scott, and iOS7 would still have all sorts of fine-grained wood textures, felt, and rich corinthian leather.

macrumors demi-god

No two people are the same. So a comparison of Cook to Jobs is wrong. A comparison of Cook to anyone is wrong. Is Apple making money? Does Apple still have a good product? I believe if it is yes, then Cook is doing his role as CEO.

macrumors 6502a

Tim Cook is all business, but Steve was an inventor... he designed and made things, and later could look at projects and speak to them from a different perspective than what someone who is all business can do. I think this is why Jobs was so successful. He had passion, experience, and an attitude.

Tim Cook has been smart enough to put strong people in places where he has a weakness that Steven Jobs would not of had.

Still though, innovation at Apple is a bit stagnant... and it's hard to say if this is a CEO thing, or just a "technology is flat lined right now" thing. Until the smart phone/tablet, how long had it been since there was any major new category in tech? Perhaps the digital camera? We simply saw enhancements to things we already had. Speed bumps, increased functionality (as we now are seeing with tablets/phones/lap tops).

Even a smart tv would be nothing "new" or ground breaking, nor would a smart watch considering they've been around.

It's a lot of pressure for a company to have. We can't really even say Apple invented the MP3 player, they just made the first successful model of one.

I don't expect to see Apple create a whole new category of anything, but I do expect that they should of reinvented a category by now and made some really Apple like inroads that I don't see. Microsoft, while win8 and tablets not really elegant and likable to me in their implementation, seems to be moving ahead of Apple which never happens, they usually copy Apple. I still feel like this is an area where Apple could knock everyone out of the water.... but what do we get? IOS that's basically lip stick and nothing more. IOS7 sure is pretty, but that's all it is. It's really nothing new. It still doesn't even match the features of Android, a sub-par os.

I predict that if Apple doesn't knock something out in the next 12 months, Cook will be the next thing they knock out of the park. The tension is slowly brewing over there, and I think this is his year to sink or swim.

MacRumors attracts a broad audience
of both consumers and professionals interested in
the latest technologies and products. We also boast an active community focused on
purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac platforms.